Locating Slavery's Legacies @ Sewanee: The University of the South

Memorial Artwork

Visual Work of Art

Lost Cause

Painting of the Cross

Richard Brough, professor of art at the University of Alabama for nearly forty years (1948-1987), painted a series of watercolors in honor of Sewanee's centennial in 1958. He was commissioned by the Associated Alumni, a group of Sewanee alumni, and the resulting images mark four dramatic scenes from Sewanee's mythologized past. They now hang in the Sewanee Inn. During his tenure at the University of Alabama, Brough served as the head of the Art Department. His connections to Sewanee were not particularly robust, but his artistic contributions to the university continue to reinforce the dramatic narrative of a battered but ultimately triumphant aristocratic institution.

In 1866, the newly consecrated Bishop of Tennessee Charles Todd Quintard went into the woods of the land that had been given to the University to plant a cross at the site of the future chapel of the University. The legend of his commemoration is key to the narrative of the "Second Founding" of the University, which marked the first class of matriculating students after the Civil War. Brough's depiction of Bishop Quintard's service is one of a number of paintings of the service.

26" x 31.5" watercolor portrait

Brough, Richard

1958

2014

1945-1976: Era of Civil Rights Movement and resistance to Civil Rights Movement

2000-Present: Memorialization in the Era of Universities Studying Slavery and the Black Lives Matter Movement

University of the South; Sewanee, Tennessee

Richard Brough

McCrady, Edward. "The Vice-Chancellor's Page." Sewanee Alumni News. 2. Published 1958.

Painting of the Second Founding of the University of the South

"Richard Brough, Well-Known Artist and UA Professor, Dies." Tuscaloosa News. Published December 20, 1996.

The Charleston Mezzanine Lounge: Richard Brough Watercolors of the Founding